Farm-Scape is sponsored by Manitoba Pork Council and Sask Pork Play Audio Farm-Scape is a Wonderworks Canada production and is distributed courtesy of Manitoba Pork Council and Sask Pork.

Farm-Scape, Episode 1551

Research underway near Saskatoon is attempting to maximize the nutritional value of dried distillers grain plus solubles when used in swine rations.

As the result of a 20 fold increase in ethanol production over the past 20 years in North American cereal by-products have become much more widely available.

Scientists at the Prairie Swine Centre are in the midst of a three year study which is evaluating the nutritional aspects of these by-products for use in swine production.

Swine Nutritionist Dr. Ruurd Zijlstra says the first phase of the study focused on the amount of digestible amino acids contained in this feed ingredient.

"The specific ingredient that we looked at was dried distillers grain plus solubles, in abbreviation DDGS, that was a by-product from ethanol production.

The DDGS was of three sources that we looked at in the study. One sample was corn DDGS, one was wheat DDGS and one was wheat plus corn DDGS.

Two main things we found, first of all, is that we know this by-product has a nutritional value for cattle but it also contains digestible nutrients that are of value for pigs. We confirmed that.

Secondly we confirmed that pigs are willing to eat this feed ingredient. Other aspects we would like to focus on would be, 'what can we do to improve the feed quality?'

Secondly we would like to look at, 'what would be the maximum inclusion rates of this feed ingredient?' Thirdly we would like to look at, 'what is the impact of including this feed ingredient on carcass quality of pigs?'

We want to make sure, with any feed ingredient, that we do not reduce the value of the carcass for the slaughter industry".

Dr. Zijlstra says scientists have wrapped up year one of the project and hope to complete the rest of the work over the next two years.

For Farmscape.Ca, I'm Bruce Cochrane.